Marketing is targeted at changing the way people act and think. Blog marketing is a powerful new medium. With this power comes an ethical responsibility. Developing an ethics statement for a business blog marketing program is especially important when several people are involved.

This helps avoid ethical misconduct which could damage both image and reputation. It acts a training tool for internal staff. It promotes open and honest communication and builds up a positive business reputation

Looking for ideas on what to include? WOMMA, the Word of Mouth Marketing Association, has published a list of ethical guidelines that they encourage businesses to adopt.

What are considered unethical blogging practices?

1. Stealth campaigns: Paid employees or contractors will promote products without disclosing their relationship to the company. The idea is to create an artificial grass roots campaign (Astroturfing). The US Federal Trade Commission has issued an opinion against this practice.
2. Shilling: Paying bloggers to post positive comments and recommendations about a product or service. Here bloggers are not free to form their own opinions. This is like hiring actors to rave about a product without disclosing that they are being paid.
3. Infiltration: This involves participating in forums or blogs using a fake identity. Then attempt to influence or sway opinions on products and brands. The goal is to confuse or mislead consumers as to identity.
4. Comment Spam: Submitting linked blog comments with the intent to try and raise their own websites’ search engine rankings. This is usually done with automatic software that posts random comments that promote commercial services.

Businesses involved in blog marketing need to consider the ethics in their own marketing campaign and how this relates to the company’s core values.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 27th, 2007 at 4:32 am and is filed under Blog Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.